Today, I am eighteen
And I'm going to the park later but sitting in the dark right now is honestly the only thing I need
Eighteen
I can buy cigarettes and lighters - responsibility is everything and it's like all these chains are getting tighter
I'm eighteen
I can get ***** magazines
go into bars, but I can't drink
And if I break the law my adult record'll forever be unclean
Eighteen, im all grown up now- act professional, be completely unsusceptible to childish things like tears and tambourines
Eighteen-
and this feels just like a dream, like a surrealist painting come to life but nothing's changed at all
And I'm finding myself missing
Seventeen

I am
A jigsaw puzzle
Taken apart piece by piece
Put away and shaken
In the dark
I was fun once
Until I got old and you knew
All my ins and outs
Now I'm back
I'm my box
Never to be
Taken
Out

Every death
I have felt, or known,
In silence, i mourn,
Within my breath...

No words come upfront
Just thoughts, preponderant...

I'd feel the freezing cold of an empty space
Feel the absence...clearly imagine a lost face
No smiles, spanning from cheek to cheek
Eyes, seek answers...
suddenly, I'm there by the shallow water of the creek
While some nearby creatures quietly chirp...and squeak
While I......... I could not even speak...

Living,
Is realizing...and accepting
At the right time, they turn brown, the weeds...and reeds,
But, under the water...waiting, growing...are their seeds
Brown ferns...are almost detached from a mossy concrete wall
With a strong current, and wind, they'd be carried...ready to fall

The driftwood lying by the shore...is always wet, but petrified
Brown fallen leaves, on the green grass...no more hold...crisp and dried,
The dead bark of a tree...in pieces...are crumbling...
Merging with the wet earth...in a process of fertilizing
Deep down under ....a fresh spark of life is starting.
All these, remind,
Life and death stand side by side,
That in the midst of death-
Something new is birthed...
When faced with death,
there is always someone's living breath
And, as long as the heart wills to beat
Then, life.....will still exist.

Hundreds, or a thousand times,  
We all have died
In the high and low of life's tides,
Physically,
Emotionally.

We remember
Those who have left
Those who have survived..are still around
We think of those who are next to leave,
Waiting for their chests' final heave

---And then, we think of ourselves---

Worry not of our own time
Make each of our remaining days
Be golden, beaming, and bright
With good deeds, and straight pathways

The earth is a moving circle
It makes a round.......as it spins
We try to live outwards....and then, within
Any way we live it...life is an endless cycle.


Sally



Copyright March 23, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan